During This year's World Mobile Congress Nokia introduced several enhancements to its in-home Wi-Fi solution. This follows the acquisitions of Unium, a US-based software company that specializes in mission-critical and residential Wi-Fi applications. The new Wi-Fi solution expands Nokia's portfolio with meshed Wi-Fi gateways and beacons the offer intelligent Wi-Fi signal management that maintains signal strenght and bandwith.

PulteGroup and Georgia Power are collaborating with a number of technology partners to create Atlanta's first "Smart Neighborhood". Located in Atlanta's Upper West Side at the intersection of Marietta Boulevard and Bolton Drive the housing development will feature the latest connected home technologies.

As one of the big names in car manufacturing Toyota has pledged to boost the autonomous vehicle industry. In partnership with TMC, Aisin Seiki, Denso Corporation they will invest of up to 2.8 billion (USD) to develop self-driving vehicle technology. The partnership has formed the Toyota Research Institute-Advanced Development (TRI-AD). While they're still working out the finer details their joint venture, one clear objective is to develop "fully-integrated, production-quality software for automated driving."

The Japanese smart home market is likely to almost fivefold by the year 2024 from its current level. According to a new report The Japanese smart home market is expected to be US$ 5 Billion by 2024. There is a growing demand in the Japanese market for safe and secure living environment, especially concerning safety functionalities and discrete monitoring for elderly people; also, since the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, Japan has been focused on building energy efficient smart homes and supportive devices.

Linksys has collaborated with Rivet Networks to develop a router that is dedicated to gamers. The new Linksys WRT gaming edition router (WRT32X) incorporates the Killer Prioritization Engine (KPE) is the only router optimized for high-speed gaming for users with Killer-enabled gaming PCs, this provide an enhanced experience for serious online gamers. The KPE optimizes traffic for low latency and less lag and ensures that the Killer-enabled PC’s gaming, audio, and video is fast and smooth, while simultaneously managing other online traffic in the home to ensure other devices and activities are not compromised.

LG is offering consumers more ways to control your home and enjoy the benefits of a connected home experience across a range of their home appliances. LG Electronics USA announced that 87 of their Wi-Fi connected home appliances, such as their washing machines and dryers, dishwashers, vacuums, refrigerators, ovens, air purifiers are now compatible with Google Assistant on Google Home and supported Android and iOS smartphones.

Do you have a Garmin vivosmart3, Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro or a Samsung Gear Sport? UnitedHealthCare is allowing some of its customers to save on health insurance, as part of its UnitedHealthcare Motion wellness program. According to UnitedHealthCare, participants have collectively tracked themselves making 130 billion steps, and earning more than $19 million in incentives since the program launched in 2016.

Qualcomm, AT&T, Ford, and Nokia have announced plans to start connected car trials with Qualcomm's Cellular-V2X (C-V2X) technology. According to Qualcomm, the trial is the first for the U.S. and will help to accelerate the development of connected cars. The trial is to demonstrate the potential of C-V2X technologies, including support for improved automotive safety, automated driving, and traffic efficiency.

Centrica has partnered wtih Eni gas e luce of Italy. The five-year partnership arrangement will help Centrica to move its Hive smart home devices into the European market. Centrica also acquired Belgian power management firm REstore in deal worth €70 million (£62 million) in cash. Headquartered in Antwerp, REstore manages 1.7GW of peak load from a portfolio of industrial and commercial customers across Belgium, the UK, France and Germany.

Technavio released their latest market study of the global smart connected cooking appliances market, according to the report titled ‘Global Smart Connected Cooking Appliances Market 2017-2021’, we can expect to see a CAGR of close to 20% between 2017 and 2021. The study looked at Ranges, Ovens and others from manufacturers such as Robert Bosch, LG Electronics, Samsung, Behmor, Koninklijke Philips, Haier (GE Appliances), Breville, and Whirlpool.